


Life Is About Creating Yourself

by Brumeier



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Attraction, Community: story-works, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friendship, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 17:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Danny is falling for Steve, which is problematic because Steve technically isn't human. And then everything changes on Midsummer.





	Life Is About Creating Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [story_works Midsummer/Midwinter Magic Flash Challenge](https://story-works.dreamwidth.org/77190.html)

“I’m fully functional, Danny,” Steve said, trying to sit up. Danny pushed him back down on the asphalt, his own bum knee throbbing from kneeling on the same hard surface.

“That’s not even remotely true, Tin Man, since your arm is currently a good seven feet over there.” Danny gestured with a tilt of his head in the general direction of said arm, which Meka was carefully bagging.

It was the usual banter, but to Danny’s ears it sounded strained. In the few months since Steve had been dumped in the lap of the task force, the high-end android had been shot, kidnapped, and survived an electrocution attempt. None of those situations had made Danny feel anything but moderately inconvenienced.

This time it was different. Maybe because Steve had pushed Danny out of the way of the on-coming car. Danny didn’t like feeling beholden to anyone, especially when that anyone wasn’t even human.

“Chin is getting the bus,” Kono said, making sure to keep the lookie-loos at a distance. 

Steve’s true nature was an open secret on the Islands. Danny knew the less-than-savory residents referred to Steve as the Terminator. And yes, that reputation probably forestalled a lot of the problems Five-0 would normally have with the criminal element, but some of them also viewed him as a challenge.

It remained to be seen if the driver of the SUV, who had been hauled away by HPD, had been aiming for Steve or was just a shitty driver.

“I’m not going to bleed out,” Steve said.

Which was technically true, though some sort of fluid was sluggishly oozing out of the hole in his shoulder, the normally durable synthetic skin torn into a ragged edge. It made Danny’s stomach twist, even though he knew Steve felt no pain from the injury.

“Can’t you just lay there quietly? Is there a mute button I can switch on?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “As if I’d tell you.”

And that was the problem with Steve. Sometimes he was so damn human it was easy to forget what he really was. Easy to forget he only mimicked human emotions and didn’t feel them, which was the whole reason he’d excelled during his Navy career.

There was a quick _beep-beep_ that announced Chin’s arrival with the bus, which was really just the van they used as a mobile IT center. Chin was Steve’s tech handler, responsible for all his maintenance and upgrades. He’d re-attach the arm, make sure it was good as new and so was Steve. 

“Your ride’s here.”

“I think that means I need to get up, Danny.”

“You’ll stay there until Chin says you can move, and not before. And in the future, you’ll remember that I’m more than capable of dodging large moving vehicles without your assistance.” It was easier for Danny to fall back on the snark than deal with his stupid, stupid feelings.

“You would have suffered more extensive damage,” Steve helpfully pointed out.

Before Danny could respond to that, Chin was there with his little toolkit and diagnostic tools.

“See if you can tone down the suicidal heroics,” Danny instructed Chin before he walked away.

*o*o*o*

_“No. No, and oh, yeah. No.”_

_“This isn’t up for negotiation, Detective,” Governor Denning said sternly. “We’re lucky to have the chance at this level of technology, and the task force is the best fit.”_

_“Do you have any idea how horribly wrong this could go?” Danny insisted._

_“You read McGarrett’s file. It’s safe to say he’s over-qualified for the job. SEALs, Naval Intelligence…he’s got a chest full of medals and he only has those because his teammates fought for it.” Denning leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “If the military hadn’t discontinued the program, and I didn’t have an in with General Traske, we’d never have gotten him.”_

_Danny knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue, not once the Governor had made up his mind. No sense pointing out – again! – that a clinical, computer-generated approach to law enforcement could end up costing lives instead of saving them._

_He’d have to figure out the best ways to use Steve, who’d be just another tool in the task force’s arsenal. It’s not like he’d ever really be part of the team._

*o*o*o*

“You look like crap,” Meka said, handing Danny a beer and steering him toward the couch.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Danny grumbled in reply.

“Liar. Why else are you here?”

Danny shook the bottle of beer at him by way of explanation, but he was only deluding himself. And Meka wasn’t fooled in the slightest. Of course Danny wanted to talk about it. He needed someone to talk him out of the way he was feeling and Meka was the perfect man for the job. He’d never taken any of Danny’s shit, even when he was new to the Islands and had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.

“Brah. Don’t insult my intelligence. We all saw you today.”

“Fuck.” Danny chugged half his beer in one go. “I’m a mess, man. You need to talk me off the ledge, or knock some sense in me, or _something_.”

“It’s a brave new world, Daniel. Men are allowed to have feelings now.”

“Not about robots, they aren’t.” Danny stared moodily at the bottle in his hands and started picking at the corner of the label. “And if you say the word ‘sexbot’ to me I’ll punch you in the face.”

“No punching anyone in the face,” Meka’s wife Amy said as she passed through the room with a laundry basket propped up on one hip. “Hey, Danny.”

“Hey.”

“Okay, tell you what I’m gonna do,” Meka said once his wife was out of earshot. “I’m gonna impart some highly classified knowledge upon you, since you’re struggling so much with this.”

Danny looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “What classified knowledge?”

“I may have gone poking around. With the assistance of someone who shall remain nameless for –”

“Toast, right? What did he find out?”

It was Meka’s turn to glare. “I hate when you do that.”

“You hate when I do a lot of things. Can we get back to your illegally-obtained classified information?”

Meka took a long, slow pull off his beer, just to be annoying. But Danny didn’t mind waiting him out, which was preferable to spending more time contemplating his own miserable circumstances.

“We found out why Project Deckard was shut down,” Meka said finally. “The AI was developed for the military with specific guidelines. They needed soldiers who could focus, take orders, and leave the emotions at the door.”

“I thought that’s what all soldiers did.”

“Soldiers with a computer for a brain and no emotional attachments to fog their thinking in the field. Soldiers with no human baggage riding around with them, which even the most intensive training can’t get rid of. Think about it.”

Danny didn’t have to think about it; he’d seen Steve on the job. He looked like a man but acted like a machine, relentless in his pursuit of criminals. Except…

“He pushed me out of the way of the car. Why would he do that?”

Meka tipped his head to the side. “Turns out the AI was smarter than they thought. It started displaying emotions.”

“What are you telling me right now?” Danny asked. “They started mimicking real human emotions?”

“Not mimicking.”

“That’s insane.” Danny finished his beer. “Machines don’t have emotions. Psychopaths can learn to act human, but that doesn’t mean they are.”

“Tell me this, then, Daniel. Why did they scrap the project?”

“I’m gonna need more beer,” Danny said. “A whole lot more.”

*o*o*o*

_Steve McGarrett was named after a Seaman who’d died during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his body lost with the others that went down on the_ Arizona. _Danny wasn’t sure why the AI needed a name at all, not when any designation would do. Maybe the person who’d created him had been feeling sentimental that day._

_That same person had sculpted Steve into the ultimate wet dream, all chiseled good looks and abs for miles and changeable eyes that were sometimes stormy gray and sometimes a greenish-blue. Whoever had built Steve’s body must have loved him, at least on some level._

_“That’s everything you need to know,” Rollins said. She dropped a flash drive into Chin’s open hand. “Take good care of him.”_

_Lieutenant Catherine Rollins was still active duty, and Steve’s former technician. She was very professional, very direct and to the point, but Danny saw the way she looked at Steve. He saw the way her hand lingered on his arm as they said goodbye. She loved him, too._

_“Have you found him a house yet?” she asked, pausing in the doorway. “It’s something he’s been talking about.”_

_“Can’t we just keep him in a closet or something when he’s off duty? Why does he need a whole house?” Danny couldn’t help asking. The look Rollins shot him would’ve withered a lesser man._

_“The Governor made arrangements,” Chin said._

_Kono nodded. “It’s a great place. Private beach. It was on the market a long time because someone was murdered there.”_

_A gruesome murder, Danny knew, because it would take a lot for prime beachfront property in Hawaii to sit vacant that long. He didn’t know what Steve needed it for. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, he didn’t piss. The house was way nicer than anything Danny could afford and most of it would end up unused. He tried not to feel bitter about it._

_“Be safe out there,” Steve said._

_“You too,” Rollins replied._

_Danny would’ve sworn she was crying as she left HQ. Who got that emotional over a robot?_

*o*o*o*

“It’s the longest day of the year,” Steve explained. “Best day to enjoy the beach.”

“Danny doesn’t enjoy the beach, as a rule,” Kono said with a grin.

The team was at Steve’s house, enjoying dinner out on the lanai. Someone had included cooking skills with Steve’s SEAL programming – Maybe just to see if they could? – and he’d done all the grilling. Danny only found it mildly awkward that Steve wasn’t eating the food he’d cooked.

“Swimming is good exercise, Danny,” Steve said.

“Danny don’t swim,” Meka replied. 

“Danny can speak for himself, thank you very much. And I can, in fact, swim. I just choose not to.” He had very good reasons for disliking the beach and the ocean and all the dangers posed by both, not that he felt like sharing them at the moment. He wasn’t going to be the buzzkill of the party. “I exercise at the gym like a normal person.”

“Someday I’ll get you on a surfboard,” Kono promised. 

“You’ve got a snowball’s chance in Oahu,” Danny replied.

Steve leaned closer to Danny, his elbows on the table. “I could teach you.”

He looked so earnest, so _human_ , that Danny had to look away. He could feel his skin flushing at the thought of Steve’s hands on him as he showed Danny how to balance on a surfboard. Thankfully, Meka changed the subject and everyone took the hint, but Danny could still feel Steve’s eyes on him. 

Despite his best intentions to be the first out the door after dinner, Danny found himself alone with Steve on lanai, watching storm clouds rolling in over the water. Thunder was rumbling and the air had an expectant feeling that spoke of coming rain.

They were enjoying a companionable silence, and Danny was enjoying a beer, when Steve asked, “You don’t like me, do you?”

“Of course I like you.” Danny’s hand tightened on the Longboard bottle. He wasn’t prepared to have that conversation. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“You tolerate me. That’s not the same thing.”

“You’d be surprised how few people I tolerate,” Danny replied. 

“And I’m not people.” The bitterness in Steve’s words hit Danny like a fist to the gut.

“Steve –”

“The Navy threw me away because I was too human. And you don’t want me because I’m not human enough. So you tell me what I am.” Steve pushed away from the table, his face set in angry lines. “You tell me where I fit.”

He stalked off across the lawn, fetching up on the beach where he stood with his back to Danny, holding himself so tightly he actually looked like the machine he really was.

Danny had to hold himself back from going to Steve, comforting him. The emotions seemed so authentic, but how could he trust that? Steve was created in a lab, assembled like a laptop, programmed to be a ninja SEAL badass. On the other hand, Danny had seen Steve laugh at jokes, and show kindness to victims of the crimes they solved. 

Man or machine, he was Danny’s teammate. So he chugged the rest of his beer and went to join Steve on the beach.

“It’s gonna rain soon,” Danny said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “You sure you should stay outside?”

“Another Tin Man joke? That’s the best you got?” Steve didn’t look at Danny, and he was still holding himself very stiffly. “You need new material.”

Time to bite the bullet and tell the truth, which was the last thing Danny wanted to do. But if Steve was really having feelings, he didn’t want to be the one to hurt them.

“I don’t know what to say to you. When you go all Robocop, it’s easy to see the machine. But I also see the man. A man I very much like, by the way.” Danny looked down at his feet. “More than I probably should.”

He sensed more than saw Steve shifting next to him.

“Cath told me a machine becomes human when you can’t tell the difference anymore,” Steve said, his voice hushed and almost covered by a rumble of thunder.

Danny looked up, met Steve’s gaze, and his breath stuttered in his throat. “I can’t tell the difference. Not when you look at me like that.”

Steve leaned in, painfully slowly, and Danny held his breath. But before anything could happen the sky opened up.

“Perfect,” Danny griped. It was obviously a sign from the universe, and not a favorable one, but he couldn’t help the feeling of disappointment that curled in his belly.

Steve, looking defeated, started trudging back up to the house. Danny was following only a few feet behind when the world lit up white and he was thrown off his feet. He rolled up to his knees, hand over his eyes and heart pounding, certain a bomb had just gone off. 

He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing.

A bolt of lightning had struck Steve square in the chest. And was still striking, even though Danny was pretty sure lighting didn’t work that way. Steve was standing there with his arms outstretched, jerking and making pained noises, and what the literal fuck was happening?

“Steve!” Danny screamed. 

The moment seemed to stretch on forever but was probably only a few seconds in real time. And then the light was gone, and Steve collapsed in a heap on the lawn, and there was a clap of thunder so loud it shook Danny’s fillings.

He scrambled across the wet grass, skidding to Steve’s side and automatically reaching for a pulse before he remembered that Steve didn’t have one.

“Steve! Hey, come on. Don’t do this. Steve!”

Danny didn’t know what to do. The lightning had charred a hole through Steve’s t-shirt but the synthetic skin seemed untouched except for a reddish bruise that looked like the branches of a tree. All that electricity had to have fried Steve’s circuits. If Chin didn’t have a backup, that could mean their version of Steve was gone forever.

“Steve, you asshole! I told you to go inside! You’re a walking lightning rod, for fuck’s sake!”

Danny was only vaguely aware that he was crying. He knew he should call Chin, but he couldn’t seem to disengage his mind from screaming _dead-dead-dead_ at him over and over. He splayed one hand on Steve’s chest, partially covering the bruise, and it took far too long for him to realize that chest was moving.

“Steve?”

But that wasn’t right. Steve was a machine; he didn’t need to breathe. He also didn’t have a heart, but now that Danny was looking for it, he could feel that, too. He slid his hand up to Steve’s neck and found a pulse there.

Danny wondered wildly if _he’d_ been the one struck by lightning, because none of that was making any sense. And then Steve’s eyes fluttered open, squinting against the rain.

“Danny?”

There was no conscious thought involved at all on Danny’s part. He just leaned over and kissed Steve like he’d been wanting to do for weeks. Steve kissed him back.

“I don’t feel good,” Steve said when Danny pulled back. 

“You just got struck by lightning, Tin Man,” Danny said, his words thick in his mouth.

“Why am I breathing?” Steve struggled to sit up, his eyes wide. “Everything feels different. What’s going on?”

“Hey! Only one of us is allowed to panic at a time, okay? New rule.” Danny helped Steve get to his feet. “Let’s get inside the house, get less wet, and call Chin. He’ll get you fixed up like he always does.”

Steve wobbled once he was upright and had to lean heavily on Danny to make it back across the lawn. He kept muttering that things felt wrong, looked wrong, that he wasn’t hearing things correctly. Danny tried not to be alarmed that Steve’s whole system seemed to be crashing, because he was still conscious and still _Steve_.

“Hang on, babe. I’ve got you,” Danny said fiercely. “You just stay with me.”

*o*o*o*

“What do you mean, he’s human?”

Danny had been pacing a hole in the hallway floor outside Steve’s bedroom while Chin did his thing. When Chin had come out looking pale and shaken, Danny had been ready for the worst.

“He has a heart. He has blood. He feels pain. All his access points are gone.” Chin leaned against the wall and scrubbed a hand over his face. “He’s a flesh and blood person, just like you and me.”

Danny shook his head. “No. No, that’s not possible. This isn’t a fucking fairy tale, Chin! No blue fairy came and turned him into a real boy.”

“He’ll have to come to HQ for a full body scan, but I’m telling you, brah. He’s human.”

Was Danny supposed to believe it was divine intervention? An act of God? How the hell were they going to explain it to the Navy? To Denning?

“I think I’m having a stroke,” Danny said. He bent over and braced his hands on his knees. “Call an ambulance.”

“You’re not having a stroke, Danny,” Chin said, sounding amused.

“I wish I was.” Danny blew out a breath and looked in the direction of Steve’s room. “How is he doing?”

“He could use a friend right now,” Chin said. “In the meantime, I’m going to go see the Kahuna. Maybe he can shed some light on this.”

“Oh, by all means, let’s check in with the witch doctor,” Danny scoffed. 

“Sit tight. I’ll be in touch.”

Danny was left alone in the hall, and he looked at Steve’s door with no small feeling of trepidation. What was he supposed to say? Miracles belonged in Bible stories, not in real life. And then he wondered what it must be like from Steve’s perspective, and that’s what finally got him moving.

“Steve?” The door was open, but Danny knocked on it anyway. “Can I come in?”

There was no answer, but it had only been a courtesy for Danny to ask in the first place. He found Steve sitting on the bed, staring blindly at his hands; there was a bandaid wrapped around one finger. He had a towel draped across his shoulders and was wearing only a pair of board shorts. The branching bruise stood out on his chest like a brand.

“You okay?”

Danny sat on the bed, close but not too close, and when Steve finally looked up his expression was completely blank.

“I don’t have anything,” he said, his tone as flat as his expression.

Translation: Steve was not okay. Danny felt way out of his depth, but that had been par for the course since teaming up with a handsome robot that had more bravery than sense.

“Bullshit,” Danny said bluntly, and Steve blinked at him. “You have the team. You think we’re just going to abandon you because things are weird?”

“I can’t do the job I was made for.”

“You mean the job Chin, Kono, Meka, and I do every day, without any cyborg parts to speak of?” Danny reached out and put his hand on Steve’s arm. No more synthetic skin, and it was starting to sink in just how vulnerable that now made Steve. “You had the training. You have on-the-job experience. You’re just as capable as the rest of us. You just need to stop throwing yourself in front of cars and bullets.”

Emotion started showing through, cracks in the façade, and Danny was shocked to realize they’d always been there. He’d written it off as mimicry, but he’d been wrong. Steve had been more human than machine even before the lightning strike.

“I don’t want to leave,” Steve said. He sounded lost and scared. 

Danny pulled him into a hug, holding on to him as tight as he could, and after a long moment Steve gripped him back just as hard.

“You’re not going anywhere, Steven. I promise you.”

He didn’t know what was going to happen, what the repercussions would be of Steve’s sudden physical humanity, but Steve belonged to Five-0 now. He was _ohana_ , a concept that Danny had taken a long time to warm up to and now fully embraced. 

“I don’t know how to be human,” Steve mumbled against Danny’s neck.

“I’ll help you. We all will.”

Steve pulled back; his face was flushed in a way it never had been when he was still mostly made of circuitry. “I feel strange.”

“That makes two of us,” Danny admitted. 

They were sitting so close. He looked at Steve’s mouth, thought of that almost-kiss out on the beach, and the actual kiss that had followed it. At some point, without his conscious consent, he’d committed himself to a man that was mostly machine. What would it mean now that Steve was human? What if –

Steve kissed him and Danny’s train of thought derailed. Was kissing part of his programming? Because he was damn good at it. Danny slid his hand up and cupped the back of Steve’s head, losing himself in the kiss and the feeling of Steve pressed against him. 

Maybe Danny was taking advantage of the situation, maybe he wasn’t, but he was only human. And now so was Steve.

“Wow,” Steve said when they broke the kiss, panting.

“I’m in so much trouble,” Danny muttered.

“I’ve got your back,” Steve assured him, in that same earnest tone he said almost everything.

He cuddled up next to Danny, and Danny put an arm around him. His life was going to change again, just as it did when he followed his daughter to the Islands. This time, at least, he wouldn’t be figuring things out on his own. And neither would Steve.

Steve’s body may have been built in a science lab, but he’d be creating his own life from here on out. That was the real miracle.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Danny said, and kissed his former Tin Man on the forehead.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Title from the following George Bernard Shaw quote: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” I also borrowed the following line from the movie _D.A.R.Y.L._ : “A machine becomes human when you can’t tell the difference anymore.”
> 
> The parameters of the story_works flash challenge included having a hint of something magical, supernatural, or surreal. While I was pondering this, I thought about Pinocchio and his wish to be a real boy. Somehow that became Steve McGarrett, handsome robot, who is slowly learning to be more human on his own when someone (or something) intervenes on his behalf. And a fic was born!


End file.
